BAREILLY: Additional district court in Bareilly booked a woman under section 195 (giving false or fabricated evidence with intention to procure conviction) of IPC for changing her statement and turning hostile in a confinement and rape case. ADJ Gyanendra Tripathi sentenced her to 1,653 days in jail along with Rs 5.9 lakh cash fine on Saturday evening.
The court said, “Due to survivor/ accused’s false statement, an
innocent man
spent 1,653 days (4 years, 6 months and 8 days) in jail.
The govt and judiciary ensure strict action in women-related complaints but that doesn’t mean that women, who intend to take undue advantage of the law, will be given to impact the rights of the men.”
In 2019, Ajay Kumar alias Raghav was allegedly booked for kidnapping and raping his colleague’s sister. The girl, then 15 years old, had told police as well as the court she had been kidnapped and raped by Ajay.
Divulging details about the case, additional district govt counsel Suneel Pandey told TOI, “Ajay was booked under sections of
wrongful confinement
, rape and Pocso court on the complaint of the girl’s mother. The girl had initially told the court she had been sedated, confined, and raped by Ajay in Delhi. After four years, she changed her statement and told the court that Ajay was innocent. The sessions court booked her under section 195 of IPC. The court had also said the victim had changed the statement in favour of the accused for money.”
Pandey further said, “On Feb 8, she told the court she had given the statement as she was pressured by her mother, who didn’t like Ajay due to his proximity to her elder sister. Her husband told the court he had asked to compromise in the case as he was fed up with the case trials and she changed her statement.”
“The judge said the allegations against Ajay were grave and he could have got life imprisonment because of the false allegations. Ajay also had to face a stigma of being in jail for an offence like rape. We had asked the court to set a precedent so that women who misuse laws made for their safety and security don’t use it as a way of minting money. Ajay had spent 1,653 days in jail and lost wages of Rs 5,88,822.47 due to that. The court convicted the woman for the same number of days along with the cash fine,” Pandey added.
